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For months, President Donald Trump boasted about having steered the U.S. stock markets to record high after record high.

The sudden cratering of stock prices, rising bond rates and fierce volatility have been a stark reminder that Trump, like his predecessors, isn't commander in chief of the U.S. economy. Financial markets pivot on forces that owe at least as much to computerized trading programs, overseas investors and global central banks as they do to a president's policies and force of personality.

The bond market, in setting federal borrowing rates, determined just how much the government could afford to borrow.

There is also the risk that the Fed could overshoot, as it sometimes has throughout its history, and raise rates so much or so fast as to cause an economic downturn.

The markets, in short, have had to adjust to the risks of higher inflation, more government debt and the potential for central banks around the world to simultaneously reduce their economic support by raising rates – perhaps aggressively.

While Trump has bragged in public about record stock prices, in an interview last year with the Associated Press, he acknowledged the trade-offs that result from linking his presidency so closely to the financial markets.